Maritime Security: A War Gone Wrong

Conflict in the Gulf appears to have settled into a long-term war.

Since the agreement between Iran and the U.S. on June 15 to negotiate for 60 days on the basis of an agenda agreed in a 14-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), there have been no substantive negotiations. After nearly a month, sanctions and a closure of the Strait of Hormuz have largely been reinstated as has the American blockade on Iranian ships and ports. By the time this edition of the magazine hits the printing press some weeks hence, the 60-day negotiation period will be over with nothing to show for it.

TERMS OF THE MOU

While the terms of the MoU suggest the U.S. had scaled back its war ambitions in almost every area, this backdown – cost-neutral to the U.S. – was anathema to the Gulf states and to Israel. Neither the GCC nor Israel has any desire for Iran to be installed as the regional super-power, nor for Iran to have a veto over trade links or the security orientation of Gulf countries.

William Hague, a former British Foreign Secretary with a leading role in the negotiations with the Iranians over the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement, has written that he "gasped with surprise" when he read the "extraordinary concessions" made to the Iranians implicit in the agenda of the MoU. These concessions betrayed weakness and a lack of understanding of Iranian war aims while underestimating the determination and skill of the Iranian negotiators.

Iranians have never made a secret of their strategic foreign policy aims, in essence to establish Persian nationalist dominance and religious evangelism over the Middle East, so it is all the more extraordinary that this was not factored in before the MoU was agreed. To defeat an enemy like the IRGC, you need the resolve and cunning of a lion, and you need lawyers and diplomats who understand the negotiators sitting on the other side of the table.

The U.S. has a plethora of those with profound understanding of Iran and its ways as well as a deep well of U.S. citizens of Iranian origin to draw from, but they were not deployed or were put on mute for this negotiation.

STALEMATE

The war looks as if it will continue at low intensity for some time to come with neither side really wanting to escalate matters, a stalemate which both sides hope to win.

The U.S. will focus on wearing down the IRGC's offensive capability on the Hormuz littoral overlooking the Strait. The bright spot is that Central Command can maintain this level of effort probably as long as needed. The U.S. will be hoping that the economic blockade and attacks on infrastructure will generate economic unrest internally – always harder to suppress in Iran than political dissent.

If the economic pressure on ordinary Iranians is sustained, it will surely weaken the hand of the Paydari-IRGC hardliners who came to the fore during the funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and are now the dominant faction within the ruling elite.

A recently leaked report conducted privately by ARA for President Masoud Pezeshkian and corroborated by covert polling undertaken within Iran by a skilled Dutch team from the GAMAAN Institute both say the same thing: The Islamic regime is about the most hated government in the world; the population is turning away from religion, but patriotism and national pride still prevail when faced with foreign interference.

The funeral attendees sending the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on his way were vocal and fanatical, but a minority, and the regime knows it. This sensing of the fragile national mood rings true.

The IRGC, for its part, hopes it can persuade the Gulf States through economic pressure and attacks on infrastructure to capitulate or compromise. My guess is that this may have been an initial inclination on the part of some Gulf States and still lives on in those particularly exposed to Iran, such as Qatar, which shares gas output from the massive South Pars/North Field with Iran.

But in general, the pre-war desire to conciliate with Iran has now been replaced by resolve to fight back, the true menacing character of the IRGC having unequivocally been exposed. In the meantime, with the dynamism we have come to expect from some of the Gulf States – the UAE in particular – logistical work-arounds are being rapidly implemented, realigning shipping channels and reducing dependency on the Strait of Hormuz, which is the Iranian's main bargaining asset.

ISRAELI ABSENCE

In this assessment the imprint of Israel is absent, preoccupied in the past few months by its attempts to secure Gaza and its northern border. Israel may also be calculating that it would be wiser to step back into its unfinished fight with Iran only when Iran and its Axis of Resistance has been weakened further.

There is no lack of understanding in Israel about the long-term deadly nature of the Iranian threat, nor any doubt that Israel's future cannot be secured until there has been a change in the character and strategy of Iran's IRGC-dominated ruling elite.

As a matter of national survival, therefore, Israel will intervene when it sees danger, and the necessity to do so, without pausing to seek permission from anybody else beforehand.

LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES

While the war continues for some time, probably at its present level of intensity, the shape of a final resolution of the conflict cannot yet be discerned. But some of the long-term consequences are already clear.

Despite the resolve, determination and professionalism of Central Command, political leadership has been weak and vacillating, such that Gulf countries will be looking for alternative, more reliable guarantors. Step forward Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and perhaps India, none of whom will appeal to all Gulf countries, such that there will a more segmented and less unified security structure that Central Command will nevertheless strive to hold together.

It will be a period of some chaos as new alignments settle. The Europeans may help, but are not going to fill the breach or be a stepdaddy.

Further afield, the vacillation at the political level will have been noted elsewhere, particularly in Asia, where Taiwan must be calculating that support from the U.S. may not be forthcoming when at the decisive moment it is needed. With a presidency weakened in its last year, China may see the apex of its opportunity to seize Taiwan in 2028, calculating that when a response from the U.S. is needed it will not be forthcoming. But again, it's not all bad news. In their own backyard, the Europeans have already learned this particular lesson, having been prompted to do so by President Trump himself.

The Europeans in general, and the Nordics in particular, now have built up sufficient capability and courage to see off Russian asymmetric threats and worse. If the 7th Cavalry comes to the rescue in the nick of time, the Danes may be checking to see whose side they're really on.

ENDGAME

Stay on Top of the Daily Maritime News The maritime news
that matters most

Get the latest maritime news delivered to your inbox daily.

Subscribe Now

In the final analysis, strategy can only be effective if based on a deep understanding of the threat. Waging war without clear strategic objectives is a set-up for failure. It squanders human life, wastes money and is ultimately counter-productive.

Jonathan Campbell-James has a degree in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from Durham University and served for 32 years in the British Army’s Intelligence Corps. His career focused on the Gulf and culminated as Deputy C2 Intelligence in HQ Multinational Forces-Iraq in Baghdad. He was then the Regional Head of Security and Political Risk covering the MENA Region for a global bank, based in Dubai and Riyadh. He also has written for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and for Gulf States Newsletter. He is a graduate of the Army Staff College, the Defence School of Languages and the NATO Defence College Rome.